I stared at the screen. Finally on PB pace. A simple last minute practice for the 602 next week has turned into the run of a lifetime! Perfect Petey RNG, early cycle on Pianta 5, perfect chomps in both Pianta levels, and a godlike Gelato skip. This was the run. The run of a lifetime. Almost sub-20 pace in Bianco 8 100 coins. The home stretch. The run.

Chat thought so too. They flooded the chat with encouraging messages that made me feel thankful for the community I'd built. My chat wasn't cancerous like top runners of other communities. The Sunshine community of both runners and fans were normally tame and welcoming.

I jumped off of Yoshi and ran to clean up the blue coins. Almost there, a few blues lefts and a few coins and I'm done with this level. I ran through the village and talked casually with chat as I usually enjoy doing, happy with my safety net of time save and comfortable that a PB was well within reach. Suddenly, something appeared that I hadn't seen for a very long time. Something that I never wanted to see again. My oldest enemy.

The Crack.

Chat exploded with "No's" with varying numbers of "o's" as my heart sank. As long as I don't spray it, I'll be fine. No pressure, right?

I carefully sprayed the spiny things into the walls, desperate to collect my 3 coins and be on my way out of this hell. I almost laughed. A perfectly awful time for the crack to appear. It's almost as if there actually is an Sunshine god who I may have angered by playing Galaxy. I was cheating on my normal speedgame and the Sunshine gods weren't liking it.

The O linked pair. So close to the end. I jumped and spam sprayed the graffiti, instantly realizing my mistake. The game froze right then, Mario suspended in the air with FLUDD eternally spraying water. I sat back in my chair and screamed as chat exploded. The run of a lifetime dead to my old enemy.

I hit the reset button a little harder than I normally do and reset the timer. I've got time for another run. I've proved that I can do it once, who says I can't do it again? Chat agreed, offering encouragement and memes as usual. I started the timer and watched the plane fly to the airstrip as I had so many times. I leaned back in my chair and laughed. Perfect. Just perfect.

Suddenly, a notification popped up on my screen. "Wooooooooo."

I looked down. A new sub. "Kaceytron, thanks for the sub!" I shouted. "And welcome officially to the Hula Gang!"

Suddenly chat exploded more than I've seen since my infamous dab on stream. 2k subs. I've made it. When I started my stream I had never dreamed that I would eventually be able to make streaming an actual job. It had been months since my 1k sub goal, and I had said I would never reach 2, at least not for a while. 6 months wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind at the time

"YEEEEEEEHAWWWW!" I shouted. 2k subs? Insane!

Suddenly, chat began to spam something that I hadn't seen in a very long time: "lick the webcam." A 2k incentive that I had promised knowing that we wouldn't get there for some time and hoping they'd forget about it by then. A rookie mistake, Twitch chat never forgets.

I stared at the chat, unsure of what to do. Lick my perfectly nice webcam, or be made a liar on stream?

Chat spammed harder. They'd never let me live this down if I didn't do it. This would be the new dab.

I turned from chat to the game and quickly took out the piranha plant. 4:24 airstrip. Good start. Chat knew I was ignoring them, and they didn't like it. They spammed even harder so that chat didn't scroll. It jumped. I could almost feel the heat coming off of my computer as chat exploded.

LICK THE WEBCAM

2K SUBS

LICK THE WEBCAM

2K SUBS Pogchamp

I stared at chat and sighed. I made a promise. A stupid hollow promise, but a promise nonetheless. I resigned myself and nodded, swallowing hard.

As Mario sat in his cell, as trapped by the jail cell as I was by my promise to chat, I leaned towards my webcam.